IMPERIAL, Mo. (AP) — Authorities say a 4-year-old eastern Missouri boy has shot himself in the groin with his grandfather’s handgun.

The St. Louis Post-Dispatch reports that the boy’s mother and grandfather thought the boy had gone to sleep in his room when they heard a gunshot Tuesday afternoon in Imperial. Jefferson County Sheriff’s Lt. Col. Steve Meinberg says the bullet entered the boy’s groin and exited his buttocks, just missing his genitals.

Investigators believe the child was wandering around the home when he found the gun in the bathroom, took it into a bedroom and began playing with it.

Meinberg says he was told the boy was “talking and laughing with the doctors and asking for a soda.”

Deputies are investigating.